Various types of sensors often must be attached to a human body for medical examination or monitoring purposes. Such sensors include, example, temperature sensors and also sensors for use in oximetry. Usually, the sensor must be held close to or in direct contact with the body for a period of time.
For example, in the case of an oximetry sensor, wherein oximetry is used as a non-invasive method of determining the oxygen saturation of a patient's blood, an oximeter probe is used. Such a probe is a rather sophisticated miniaturized device having two components mounted on a member, a sensor at one end and an a light emitting source, such as an LED, at the other end. The mounting member is folded around a part of the patient's body, such as a finger or possibly the earlobe, with the sensor and light source at predetermined locations so that the emitted light from the source can pass through the patient's body tissue to the sensor. It is thereafter taped in place by adhesive tape, or held in place with a belt, strap or clamps. The character of the light received by the sensor is subject to change by the "color" of the patient's blood which is an indication of its oxygen content.
While strapping, the use of clamps, Velcro type bandages or taping of a probe or other type of sensor to the patient's body are workable, these approaches have problems in that they are sometimes difficult to apply to the body while holding the probe or other sensor at the proper locations. In the case of an oximeter probe which comprises the two components discussed above, it is also difficult to locate the sensor and the light source at the proper location and hold them there during the taping or clamping.
In addition, an oximeter probe is expensive. Therefore, it is not intended to be disposable and it is to be reused. The prior art methods and apparatus for attachment of the sensor make this goal difficult to achieve since parts of the probe and light emitting source come into contact with the patient's body, body fluids, etc. This gives rise to a sterilization problem, i.e., the probe components must be sterilized for reuse since they come in contact with the body. Also, where tape is used to fasten the probe to the body, the components are subject to having a residue of adhesive left on them.
Similar problems occur, for example, in using various types of temperature sensor probes which must be fastened to predetermined portions of the body and are also not intended to be disposable.